Daylight Saving Time 2014: What to Do With Your Clocks This Weekend

The time to spring forward has sprung! Well, it will this Sunday, March 9, when we officially get to turn our clocks forward and reap the bright and sunny pros of daylight saving time.

Thankfully, most of us have smartphones that will switch over automatically, but I wouldn't blame you for wanting to double-check that you're completely on the ball! To preempt any clock confusion, here, six facts about what to do, when to do it, and, for the heck of it,why we do it!

Daylight saving time 2014 will begin at 2 a.m. on Sunday, March 9. At that time, you'll want to turn your clocks (or make sure "smart" clocks automatically turn) forward an hour.

We "fall back" to standard time on Sunday, November 2.

The federal government doesn't require U.S. states or territories to observe daylight saving time, so residents of Arizona (except for residents of the Navajo Indian Reservation), Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Marianas Islands don't have to change their clocks this weekend.

Ben Franklin is said to have proposed the notion of daylight saving time after he observed that the sun frequently rose before he did and that people could be more productive if daylight hours were shifted into the evening.

The biggest misconception about daylight saving time -- besides referring to it as "daylight savings time" -- is that by shifting the clock, we change the number of hours of daylight. Not so. What is changing is how society organizes itself to take advantage of time.

Turns out, it really is beneficial to make the change: "In a nationwide American time-use study, at the time of daylight saving time extension in the spring, television watching is substantially reduced and outdoor behaviors like jogging, walking, or going to the park are substantially increased. That's remarkable, because of course the total amount of daylight in a given day is the same," states University of Washington researcher Hendrik Wolff.